


Envy of Angels

by Morbane



Category: Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Constructive Criticism Welcome, Dark, Dubious Consent, F/F, No Rebellion, Present Tense, angry female character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-26
Updated: 2014-04-26
Packaged: 2018-01-20 20:05:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,395
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1523891
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Morbane/pseuds/Morbane
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Prim is eighteen, her name is called again.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Envy of Angels

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Kastaka](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kastaka/gifts).



"Primrose Everdeen!"

The name rings out in a hush. Not a silence - too many girls around her have just let out a relieved breath - but no one speaks. In her head, Prim hears an echo: _No! I volunteer as Tribute!_ but the sister who shouted those words is six years dead.

Her feet have begun to move without her realising it. Already she's thinking she should have known this would happen. The Capitol doesn't give people second chances, no matter what blood was paid for them -

Her jaw is clenched, and she climbs the steps to the stage.

"Welcome _back_ ," says Effie Trinket. Oh, that's funny. Training to heal with her mother has given Prim a taste for black humour - even this, the very blackest - and she actually manages a smile. 

The boy who's chosen is Dirk, fifteen, a Seam boy who's already spent two years in the mines. Prim thinks she'll at least be able to outrun him. She imagines his lungs stained with coal dust. That makes her imagine all the injuries she's treated over the years -

Except this time, she'll be inflicting them. Her gorge rises. She looks away from the boy, and sees her mother and Mrs Hawthorne, white-faced, holding hands.

It's Gale who brings her the mockingjay pin.

"I'm not sure I want this," Prim says, turning it over. Gale shrugs.

"Is there something else?"

"No, not really," Prim admits, her tone casual. She's wearing ribbons in her hair; her mother put them there. When her mother came to see her, they only held hands for the few minutes they were allowed. Words are too hard, sometimes. And they don't do enough.

"That's the spirit," Gale says. 

Yes, Katniss had speed and woodlore and archery and courage. Prim has... a good poker face.

In the train to the Capitol, Haymitch Abernathy sees her playing with the pin.

"Good idea," he says, turning away from Dirk. "They won't have forgotten Katniss, so you might as well play that story up."

Prim's mouth twists. Won't they have? Who in the Capitol remembers the District dead? 

But someone will. When Rue of District Eleven came through on her Victory Tour, they called Prim to the stage, and Rue gave her the pin back. Prim watched her sister die, sliced by the Two girl's daggers, and she knows that pin was carried off with Katniss' body. Someone took that pin off her jacket and gave it to Rue so that Rue and Prim could make a pretty scene together. 

They call Rue the Angel of Death, because she's one of the few tributes to ever get through a Game without killing anyone. Others killed for her, of course - Katniss killed the One boy for her when he caught Rue in a trap, and Rue's district partner killed the girl from Five when she snuck up on Rue. And then the mutts killed the last tribute left, the boy from Two, because Rue could run faster, climb higher, than he could, and anyway, the commentators said, he seemed a little wild-eyed by the end.

Perfect and innocent, they call her, with no blood on her hands - unless you count the blood they washed off that mockingjay pin.

Prim should feel glad that it can happen that way - that you can survive a Game without killing. But she's stood with her mother over mangled bodies when her mother has shaken her head, and she knows: you _can_ kill by not doing anything. It's just not as simple as all that.

What's simple is this: Primrose Everdeen, tribute. She shouldn't be thinking like this, but it all seems so pre-arranged. And the funny thing is, after Katniss, after her sacrifice and death, she thought she was safe. She thought she could grow up and learn to be a doctor. She was thinking of her life ahead. Not many other kids her age could do that, but she knew it was over.

"It keeps us scared, instead of planning," Gale used to say, with a curl to his lip. "This is when we should be learning, getting smart, getting skills, thinking about our _lives_. Instead, half the kids in the Districts are in limbo, waiting to see whether or not they'll die. Smart move, despots," and she would laugh at that flippant pretense at admiration.

It made Gale angry, and it made Prim want to cry or forget all about it, and humour was the only place in the middle they could meet.

So all this time she's been planning for the next year, and the year after that - even ten years after that - whether they can afford more goats, if it's safe to write to other districts to ask for medical texts - and now she thinks the Capitol was just laughing at her. All this time she thought she was free, and instead, her life was running along rails.

Lizza comes up behind her as she stands at the train window. "Penny for your thoughts," she says.

"What penny?" Prim says, not looking around. "Maybe if you had a needle, or a sack of potatoes, or bleach... Or a knife."

Lizza laughs lightly. "A penny's still good for the copper."

Lizza is a merchant girl - or was. Five years ago, at the Quarter Quell, President Snow announced the wildcard rule for the "special" Games: each District would supply tributes proportional to the tributes they'd already lost. No Careers from Districts One, Two, and Four. No volunteers at all.

Punishment, Gale said, for Katniss' rallying defiance. Punishment for Rue's bloodless victory.

A chance to balance the odds, President Snow said. 

There were five tributes taken from District Twelve. One could say the odds were in their favour.

Commentators called it the bloodiest Games in years: an arena full of savage, scared children, none of whom had been trained to kill, inflicting clumsy bruises, mutilations, and half-deaths, starvations and infections and delirium. But Lizza's victory meant a feast on her return, and just a little extra to go around, after. Lizza's hands were bloody to the elbows, but she never denied it. And there's a twisted gift for Prim, now, because she'll have her own mentor on her side.

The stylist looks at her and mutters about having to change her plans; Prim saw dark shimmery fabric off in another room, but Prim and Dirk go off to the parade in light blues and yellows set off against deep grays. "You both look too young," Lizza says, frowning, where the stylist can't hear her, and she and Mr Abernathy exchange looks. They don't make much of an impression in the parade. 

LIzza argues with the stylist - Valancy - and Prim joins in. "I'm not a little girl any more!" she yells. "Maybe I can get _pity_ for my dead sister, but I'm not going to win on _pity_." Mr Abernathy looks at her and nods. It's the first time he's met her eyes since the train, since he commented on the pin.

"All right," he says to her, and to Dirk, who's scowling too, "but you're going to have to stand out in training if you want anyone to think you're tough."

Prim _is_ tough. She can look at Dirk and think about killing him. It makes her feel sick to think she'll have to actually do it, but sick _angry_. She can imagine slicing through his neck even though she knows exactly the colour his face will turn, how he'll look minutes or hours after his death. She knows what pain looks and sounds like, and how to keep working even when someone screams louder because of what she's doing.

She can even feel angry _at_ him for being there to be killed. It's not logical or good, but she can take her anger at having to hurt for terrible reasons, for no justification at all, and put it on him. Or Haymitch and Lizza. Or Rue.

Rue is a mentor this year; _of course,_ Prim thinks when she sees her, _they have almost as few Victors as we do._ When they lock eyes, Prim's been training all day - the first thing she did was learn to make a trap that would pull someone up off the ground by their leg and dangle them in the air, because then it would be so easy to slash their neck or the large arteries in either thigh. She's been running on anger, making sure all the other tributes register the hard look in her face. 

Rue has come to watch her tribute, but when Prim catches her eye, she frowns, looks bothered. After that, Prim deliberately bumps the girl from Eleven, thirteen, a kid with big hands that make Prim think of a frog, though they're calloused, not soft.

She cries that evening in her room before they eat. Katniss died to save a Prim who loved animals and couldn't hurt anyone, and that Prim grew up to hurt people if she had to because she cared and that was the right thing to do - and this Prim is going to kill, for no reason except to save her own life, and that's not a good reason but she's still going to act on it. 

But that Prim she thought she was - maybe that Prim doesn't exist, because she thought she was free, that after her name had been drawn once it would never be drawn again, and it seems like the Capitol knows better. The Capitol knows she belongs in a world where people hurt each other for terrible reasons. The Capitol knows she belongs to them.

It's a forlorn thought that maybe it's good to jostle the other tributes and stare hard-faced at them and intimidate them by the swift, strong knife cuts she can make almost without looking at her target. Because they won't underestimate her, no, they'll overestimate her, and then maybe a Career will take her out and she'll die anyway... At least she won't have tricked anyone, won't have let others do her killing for her... No.

She makes herself stop, and washes up, and goes in to dinner, and eats a lot, because crying is exhausting - and she thinks, if she can do that, start crying and then stop and move on, she can do the next thing. She doesn't know who this Prim is, this Capitol's Prim; she'll have to find out by doing it, and then living with what she's done.

Valancy lays out the plans for their Interview clothes. For Prim, there's a light yellow dress, with two long, contrasting, grey bars crossing at her chest and going down to her knees, topped with steel-blue curves flaring out at her shoulders. The effect is like two crossed mining picks. "Or scythes," says Lizza, approving. Emblems of instruments or weapons (or things that could be either or both). Dirk has a double-ended mining pick on his shirt like a T for Twelve; it's a little cartoonish, but the edges of his sleeves as they fall past his wrists also taper to a glittering point, making him look as though there's a blade coming over the back of each hand.

Prim turns the mockingjay pin over in her hands again, wondering what it might add to such an ensemble, and whether carrying her sister's emblem is such a good idea. Suddenly, a far better use for it hits her: she will give it back to Rue. Let her carry it.

It's almost too easy. When she asks if she's allowed to go out, Lizza eyes her sharply, but nods: there's no way out of the training complex, of course, but she doesn't need to leave. She goes down to the ground floor and to the training gym, and Rue is one of the three people - all mentors, actually - still playing with the weapons and ropes and survival tools. Prim watches her. It really is like playing - as though Rue is miming her strikes with a spear into the empty air. She never used a spear in the Games. Maybe she's preparing herself for how it's going to feel when her tribute does it. Or for when Prim puts a spear in her. Prim doesn't remember seeing her on screen last year, or the year before - maybe they only make you mentor once you've come of age. Maybe this is her first time.

There's no such thing as a private place here, Prim knows that. There are cameras to record emotional moments for later, when the tributes are dead and it's a clip show, and there are cameras to make sure the tributes don't hurt each other before the fun starts, and there are cameras to make sure the tributes don't hurt themselves. So Prim walks up to Rue in front of everyone, coming wide around so that Rue doesn't thrust a spear at her.

"Hello, Prim," Rue says.

She was a sweet-looking, wide-eyed, beautiful little girl, and she's just as beautiful now. Prim could believe that her looks owe nothing to the Capitol, and their shaving and shaping, polishing and plucking, because the woman who stands before her now is instantly recognisable from the girl who stood on the stage in District Twelve. There's the same fine bones, though they don't stand out quite so sharply, and the same calm, reserved look, as though Rue has just hidden a moment of wonder at the world.

Prim wonders what Rue sees, and sets her jaw to make sure her anger is visible.

"I came to gave you this back again," Prim says, holding out the mockingjay pin. "It was my sister's, but you're the one who sang to them." _You're the one who lived._

Rue takes it in her free hand, which surprises Prim - she thought she'd have to push harder. "I'm sorry about your sister," Rue says quietly, as though she didn't say that before.

"So am I," says Prim, still hard. 

Rue gives her a long look. Prim still has no idea what she's thinking. 

"It's personal for you," Rue says, turning the pin over in her hand just as Prim has, these last few days.

She puts the spear down and turns. "Walk with me," she says. Prim feels suddenly nervous, but there's nothing Rue can do to her. She's a tribute, so her life is sacred, until the moment it's forfeit.

They leave the training area. Rue leads Prim to the elevator, and as Prim steps in behind her, she pushes a button Prim doesn't see, and turns, leaning her back against the panel. 

"Are you going to hurt my tributes because you can't hurt me?" she asks calmly. Prim's mouth is suddenly dry. She can't believe it's come to this, but she nods jerkily, forcing herself to keep her eyes on Rue. Well, it's true.

The elevator slides to a stop. Rue turns towards the doors, leaning very close into Prim's space. "And if you could," she murmurs, "would you hurt me, because you can't hurt the Capitol?"

The doors whoosh open just on that last word, screening it from anyone else. Prim's mind reels. It's true, she's been angry at everyone: Effie, Haymitch Abernathy, Rue. Dirk, her mother, Gale. Everyone it was safe to be angry at. But not the people whose fault this really is.

"You know, I'm glad I got to meet you, Prim," Rue says, leading her out - and it's not the District Eleven floor. It's the roof. It's absolutely still, and that reminds Prim that this quiet, too, is an illusion - there should be a breeze here, or even colder air, but this area is under some kind of Capitol glass ceiling, however invisible, and that means Capitol eyes and ears as well.

"You could have met me when I was twelve," says Prim, "if Katniss hadn't volunteered for me."

"I'm also glad we're both alive now," Rue replies calmly - and if there's irony in her words, it's hard to tell if she put it there on purpose. 

"Isn't it a strange chance, that your name was picked, so we could meet again?" Rue continues, still with a poker face as good as Prim's, and in fact Prim grimaces, because she is sure it's no chance at all. 

Then Rue kisses her.

They're the same height, but Rue's hand's at the small of her back and Rue's managed to place one leg so that she's pressing into the back of Prim's knee, and Prim realises that unless she breaks away, it would take only a tiny change in pressure for Rue to be supporting all her weight.

 _And if you could, would you hurt me?_ is still running through Prim's mind - on a loop that cuts out the treacherous part of Rue's words - and she wonders wildly if that's an _offer_. Prim can't strike Rue, and Rue can't strike her, and even if they let each other get hurt there could be hell to pay, but maybe Rue can offer this. Even if she doesn't want to. Especially if she doesn't want to.

And she feels good, and her mouth tastes neutral, clean - maybe that part _is_ due to Capitol beauticians, because it seems strange that anyone's mouth should taste so clean and a little like flowers (not the way they smell, but the way the petals taste when you crush them, a little bitter because in District Twelve plants are edible or not edible, mostly, with little room for _decorative_ in between).

Prim's known for ages she liked girls. Before she got a crush on anyone, she'd kind of _tried_ to have a crush on Gale, because it almost seemed like she should - what with all the things he taught her, and the way he looked after her, and the way he looked at her and saw Katniss, sometimes. And then when she was sixteen she dated a girl, but it didn't work, and now she's really glad she wasn't going steady with anyone when she was Reaped.

A lot of break-ups happen just before the Reaping.

But this has nothing to do with crushes. This is just - sex. Well, Prim supposes it's sex, but that's kind of taking a lot for granted, and she's kind of disturbed at herself that that's where her mind's going, but this feels good - 

And it's not thinking about death and hate and the Hunger Games.

So she kisses back, and she slips a hand under the collar of Rue's shirt where her skin is warmer, and Rue does press into the back of her knee, a suggestion that they sit down, or even lie down. So it is sex. Okay.

The ground is hard, though. "No," Prim suggests, breaking away from the kiss, "the railing," and Rue laughs, and it's awkward, but they manage that way. Prim wraps one arm around Rue's back and strokes her, undresses her, finally fucks her with the other, until Rue says, gently, shuddering, "Stop," and Prim isn't sure just what kind of stopping point she's reached. Rue goes to one knee in front of her, and Prim holds the railing with both hands and tilts her head back as though expecting someone to bend her all the way over the rail, but Rue's down on the ground with a hand at her knees and another hand at her clit, making her come.

Prim straightens up slowly, looking at Rue, who takes her hands away, who gets to her feet, who joins Prim at the railing, with a foot of space between them.

They stare out at the Capitol together in silence for a minute, Prim's heartbeat slowly calming.

Prim hears herself say, airily, "Is it personal for you?"

Rue stares at her. Their eyes are level again, but Prim suddenly feels very small. 

Rue doesn't say "no". She says, "Survive the games, and you'll find out." And Prim wonders how many other people Rue has done this with (or for, or to). If that's what being a Victor means.

Prim swallows. "I _am_ going to try to... survive," she says, a little defiantly, because this doesn't cancel anything out, not Katniss, not the pin, not the whole terrible Games. But what's between them isn't Rue's two tributes. Of course it isn't.

Rue says calmly, "Of course you are," and as she walks away, the mockingjay pin glints in her fist.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks VERY VERY much to my two beta readers, [Lorata](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Lorata) and [tricksterquinn](http://archiveofourown.org/users/tricksterquinn/), who were both swift and insightful.


End file.
